WEBVTT

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This week, there have been 
a whole slew and deluge of stories

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coming out form the leak
of 11 million documents

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from a Panamanian-based law firm
called Mossack Fonseca.

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The release of these papers
from Panama

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lifts the veil on a tiny piece
of the secretive offshore world.

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We get an insight into how
clients and banks and lawyers

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go to companies like Mossack Fonseca

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and say, "Okay, we want
an anonymous company,

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can you give us one?"

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So you actually get to see the emails,

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you get to see the exchanges
of messages,

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you get to see the mechanics
of how this works,

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how this operates.

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Now this has already started
to have

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pretty immediate repercussions.

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The Prime Minister of
Iceland has resigned.

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We've also heard news that an ally


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of the brutal Syrian dictator 
Bashar al-Assad

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has also got offshore companies.

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There's been allegations
of a 2 billion-dollar money trail

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that leads back to 
President Vladimir Putin of Russia

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via his close childhood friend

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who happens to be a top cellist.

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And there will be a lot 
of rich individuals our there

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and other who will be nervous
about the next set of stories

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and the next set of leaked documents.

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Now, this sounds like the plot
of a spy thriller

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or a John Grisham novel.

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It seemed very distant from
you and me ordinary people.

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Why should we care about this?

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But the truth is that if rich
and powerful individuals

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are able to keep their money offshore

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and not pay the taxes that they should,

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it means that there is less money
for vital public services

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like healthcare, education, roads,

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and that affects all of us.

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Now for my organization Global Witness,

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this exposé has been phenomenal.

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We have the world's media
and political leaders

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talking about how individuals can use
offshore secrecy

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to hide and disguise their assets,

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something we have been talking about
and exposing for a decade.

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Now I think a lot of people
find this entire world

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baffling and confusing
and hard to understand

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how this sort of offshore world works.

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I like to think of it a bit
like a Russian doll.

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So you can have one company
stacked inside another company,

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stacked inside another company,

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making it almost impossible
to really understand

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who is behind these strucutres.

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It can be very difficult
for law enforcement

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or tax authorities, journalists,
or civil society

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to really understand what's going on.

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I also think it's interesting
that there's been

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less coverage of this issue 
in the United States,

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and that's perhaps because 
some prominent US people

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just haven't figured in this exposé,
in this scandal.

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Now that's not because there are
no rich Americans

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who are stashing their assets
offshore.

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It's just because of the way in which
offshore works,

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Mossack Fonseca has fewer 
American clients.

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I think if we saw leaks from
the Cayman Islands

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or even from Delaware
or Wyoming or Nevada,

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you would see many more cases
and examples

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linking back to Americans.

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In fact, in a number of US states,

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you need less information,
you need to provide less information

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to get a company than you do 
to get a library card.

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That sort of secrecy in America
has allowed

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employees of school districts
to rip off school children.

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It has allowed scammers
to rip off vulnerable investors.

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This is the sort of behavior
that affects all of us.

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Now at Global Witness,
we wanted to see

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what this actually looked 
like in practice.

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how does this actually work?

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So what we did is we sent in
an undercover investogator

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to 13 Manhattan law firms.

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Our investigator posed
as an African minister

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who wanted to move suspect funds
into the United States

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to buy a house, a yacht, a jet.

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Now what was truly shocking
was that all but one of those lawyers

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provided our investigator with suggestions
on how to move those suspect funds.

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These were all preliminary meetings